


easy like sunday mornings

by darcylindbergh



Series: good morning [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A lot of kissing, Domesticity, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, M/M, Perhaps a Little Angst But Nothing Serious, Probably a Little Smut As We Go On, Romance, The Soft and Gentle Ordeal of Waking Up Together, We're Talking About Safety and Tenderness and Love, mostly established relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: I love you,he thinks,permanently.*A collection of soft wakings and unbelievably cheesy moments.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley
Series: good morning [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1470737
Comments: 327
Kudos: 373





	1. the crossword puzzle

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of standalone, unconnected good morning ficlets mostly being brought over here from Tumblr, although I will likely write a few new ones myself because I'm a sucker for it after all. Ratings and tags may change. Posts every Sunday as a sweet treat to start the week.

Crowley doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

The thing is, he should’ve _expected_ it. Aziraphale’s not actually stupid, even if his magic tricks are. He can read Crowley as easily as any one of his books; he can see Crowley where he hides behind his sunglasses. He knows, no doubt, what Crowley wants, but can’t bring himself to ask for.

And Aziraphale doesn’t love by halves.

There is a blanket on the sofa in the back room of the bookshop; there’s a potted fern by the till out front. There’s a rather particular blend of earl grey in the cupboards and a coffee cup with a devil’s tail handle on the rack by the sink, hard-boiled eggs in the fridge, apricot jam for the toast. The daily crossword is on the table, left out for Crowley to find, and although Crowley knows Aziraphale will have already done it with his breakfast, he’s miracled the answers away and instead written into the boxes: _GOOD MORNING._

Crowley is sure there would be a little heart drawn in next to it if Aziraphale had thought Crowley wouldn’t find it incredibly twee. Crowley picks up a pen _—_ not a pencil _—_ and fills the heart in himself.

 _I love you_ , he thinks, shading it in, _permanently._

If he ever finds a note without a heart on it again, he’ll be surprised. But he’ll never _quite_ be used to it.

He had fallen in love with Aziraphale’s heart, with Aziraphale’s courage, with Aziraphale’s kindness. He’d fallen in love with the way Aziraphale acts on impulse, the way he embraces recklessness and pretends like he didn’t, and the way he hesitates, the way he hems and haws, the way he overthinks until he’s worked himself back round in a circle. He’d fallen in love with the elegantly manicured hands and the outdated jacket and even the stupid magic tricks, but Crowley had never dared to think that Aziraphale would direct all that affection and all that joy and all that _love_ onto him.

Maybe he wouldn’t have, in another universe. In another time.

In this one, though, Aziraphale is free, and he loves like it.

Crowley should’ve expected it: that Aziraphale would love him in _exactly_ the way that he loves Aziraphale.

A throat clears behind Crowley; he turns to see Aziraphale standing in the door, worn waistcoat, familiar smile. “Morning,” Aziraphale says. “Sleep good?”

He had. He’d slept curled around Aziraphale’s warmth, under white cotton sheets, under white feathered wings, under protection and under watch. He’d slept hard and dreamt of flowers pressed inside books—frail, delicate things, held fast by words and pages—and had not wondered whether he’d still be loved in the morning.

Aziraphale does not love by halves. He’d left no room for that.

“Yeah,” Crowley says, flushing pink, mouth dry. He knows that Aziraphale can see right through him, can hear all the words he doesn’t say. “It was all right. Never better.”

_It was perfect. It was everything I’ve ever wanted. It was safe. It was comforting. It was like coming home._

Aziraphale’s smile softens. “Good,” he says, “I’m glad.” And he is. Crowley can see that he is. Can hear the words between the lines.

_I thought so too._

Then he’s off like a shot, of course, making tea, telling Crowley about a book dealer he’s meeting later to see about a supposed Shakespearean folio, about a customer who’d come in looking for the shop next door again and wasn’t it a _bit_ obvious that this wasn’t that sort of shop, about how he had a craving for gnocchi and if Crowley wouldn’t mind perhaps they could go out later and scrub up something, maybe that little place over on Marylebone Road that had the gorgonzola chicken Crowley liked so much that one time, and Crowley soaks it all in, soaks Aziraphale all in, all the curiosities and the interests, all the ways Aziraphale says _we_ and _us_ , all the ways it’s so _easy_ for Aziraphale to wrap himself around Crowley, to give of himself to Crowley, to let Crowley in, to make space for him. The way Crowley fits so easily into him; the way he fits so easily into Crowley.

Aziraphale hands Crowley’s mug to him and kisses the corner of his mouth. “You all right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Crowley says, coming back to himself a little. He leans over and kisses Aziraphale properly, slow and careful; Aziraphale tastes like tea and sugar. “Yeah, I’m all right. Perfect, even. Brilliant.”

He looks down at the little heart he’s drawn onto the crossword; Aziraphale follows his gaze, and reaches out to draw a single finger over it. Black and stark in ink: in permanence. _I love you. I will love you. I’m home._

When he looks up at Crowley again, his river-blue eyes are clear and his mouth is tipped into something approaching wonder, something approaching _happiness,_ and when he kisses Crowley again, this time he tastes like a promise. _I love you too. Just like that._

Aziraphale grins as he pulls away, leaving Crowley a little unsteady on his feet. “We’ve got to leave by ten if we want to meet this book dealer on time,” he says. “Don’t take too long getting ready.” And then he kisses Crowley one last time and goes back down to the shop.

Crowley constantly feels like he’s falling in love all over again; he constantly feels like Aziraphale is falling in love with _him_ all over again. It feels like delicate spring shoots and brilliant pink and gold sunrises and warm cups of tea, like being taken care of and being wanted and being held close in the depths of the night.

It feels like reaching out for six thousand years, and finally finding the hand in the dark.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

He doesn’t think he wants to.


	2. the job description

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday again! It has been a really rough week in the life but hopefully we are turning a corner into better days here soon. This one got a little more serious than the original tumblr ficlet in the edits, but it felt like a catharsis I needed to explore. I hope you all have a lovely Sunday, and a lovely week! x Darcy

Crowley wakes first.

He can tell as soon as consciousness begins to rise underneath his dream, like light rising through deep, dark waters—his awareness shapes itself around the other side of the bed first, and he’s aware of softness, stillness, heat. The weight of relaxed muscles, and a possessive hand still curled over one of Crowley’s hips. Soft, even breathing, born of habit more than necessity. A silence that expects nothing, waits for nothing: that simply _is_.

Crowley revels in it for a moment, then—slowly, softly, so as not to startle—he opens his eyes.

It’s worth it to be awake early like this, with Aziraphale asleep across the pillow, his face smooth and lax in sleep, hair mussed, bare shoulders peeking above the line of the duvet. They’re pressed so close together that if Crowley moved even an inch, Aziraphale would probably notice, but Crowley doesn’t have anywhere to be.

He’s content to lay there, watching without waiting for anything to happen. Wondering at how the early sun treking across the ceiling and the morning breeze come in off the sea could make it seem like all the light in the world comes from here, comes from _him_ : the angel of the South Downs.

“You’re staring,” Aziraphale says, without opening his eyes.

A smile spreads over Crowley’s mouth, affection blooming behind his ribs. “S’my job to stare,” he returns easily.

Now that Aziraphale’s awake, he doesn’t mind moving a bit closer, finding bare skin under the blankets to cover with his hands, to press against with his thighs.

Aziraphale’s mouth twitches, pleased; he rubs his head against the pillowcase, nose brushing Crowley’s, searching for a cool spot for his cheek. “How do you figure that?”

“Easy,” Crowley says. “It’s my job to look at you. To know all the details.”

The grin creeping across Aziraphale’s face is a proper one, now. His eyes open just long enough to find Crowley’s, to find his hand in the sheets, scooting even closer into his hold.

“And do you? Know all the details, I mean.”

Crowley hums consideringly, wrapping an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders, breathing deep into his hair. The sun filtering in through the curtains is peach-pink on Aziraphale’s skin; he smells like sleep and warm bodies and the shampoo he likes to use when he’s being particularly indulgent. Familiar and comforting, the way he’s been for thousands of years.

“I know every point and plane and particle of you,” Crowley tells him softly. “I know every hair and freckle, every line of you. The way the breath moves in your lungs, the way the beat sounds in your heart—which is totally unnecessary, by the way, but you keep it running. You like that, the weight of it. Tethers you.”

Aziraphale’s hands skate up over the vulnerable dip of Crowley’s waist, down into the divot of his hip, back up again over his spine. A buzz shivers through Crowley; Aziraphale pulls him closer yet, soft places pressing into soft places, bones into bones.

“And beyond the details?” Aziraphale asks. “What do you think about that?”

“The _you_ part of you?” Crowley slips down, presses their foreheads together. Nudges their noses together. “That one’s easy. It’s the part of you that’s just like the part of me.”

“Mm. A scoundrel, a rascal, a wily thing too clever for his own good?”

“Yeah, that’s you all over, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrows in mock outrage, his mouth dropping open in a little offended gasp. Crowley laughs, and takes advantage of the moment to dive in and press a kiss to the corner of his lips, avoiding it when Aziraphale tries to kiss him back properly until they’re both giggling, clinging to each other.

Finally Crowley pushes Aziraphale back into the pillows, settling mostly on his chest to pin him down so he can’t squirm away, not that he’s trying to. Instead his hands wrap around Crowley’s waist, holding him close, mischief still twinkling in his eyes, flushed cheeks, bed-mussed hair.

He looks beautiful. He looks _happy._

“Curious,” Crowley says, after a moment, studying Aziraphale’s face. “And a little anxious. Compassionate. Bit soft-hearted really, unless it’s something you’re possessive over, then you can be a right bastard. Impatient and oblivious, too, sometimes, even though you’re so clever, but also—gentle. And comforting. And so completely, entirely full up of love all the time that sometimes I worry whether you have enough to give it to.”

Aziraphale’s eyes soften, and reaches up to cup Crowley’s face in his hand, to smooth a thumb over his cheekbone. “I have _everything_ ,” he says quietly. “I think I could spend the rest of time loving you, Crowley, and still not have loved you as much as I wanted to.”

And Aziraphale kisses him then, reaching up from the pillows: a breath made tangible, a heartbeat made definite. He’s warm and so _tender_ , kissing Crowley, slow and deliberate, his hands cradling Crowley closer like he were something delicate and precious, and it makes something in Crowley’s chest feel too big, too close to the surface. Like something in him is about to break.

“You’re all right,” Aziraphale says, pulling away, as if he can feel it too. He keeps his hands heavy and solid on Crowley’s body, holding him together. “It’s all right.”

It is all right. It’s better than all right. It’s just—also more than Crowley ever expected.

But this is _Aziraphale_ , he reminds himself. It’s possible he should start expecting more.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice, by the way—” Aziraphale goes on after a moment, letting a smile creep into his voice and giving Crowley something less serious to hold onto, “that you were meant to be describing _yourself_ , same as me. Curious, impatient, oblivious—full up of love—”

Crowley snorts. “A right bastard, too.”

“Sometimes. Wouldn’t be you if you weren’t. But, you know. You’re everything else, too.”

And Aziraphale believes that. Crowley can see it in his eyes, feel it in his hands. He believes that about Crowley.

“You’ve always had faith in me,” he finally says. “You should know I’ve always had faith in you, too. More than anybody else, more than anybody Up or Down, or—there’s just you. I know you, angel. The one thing I know in all the world is _you_.”

Aziraphale smiles, reaching up for another kiss, another slow, delicate thing. The cracking thing in Crowley’s chest holds strong for now, but he thinks, for the very first time, that if it _did_ break open, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

“I know you too,” Aziraphale tells him. “That is, after all, _my_ job, same as yours. The marriage certificate says so.”

“It’s a good job,” Crowley agrees, and the next kiss is a little less slow, a little less delicate, a little more— _intriguing_. A little more suggestive. A question asked of all the bare skin between them that might receive an answer, if it kept angling for one. “Excellent benefits. Think I’ll keep doing it, if you don’t mind.”

Aziraphale doesn’t mind at all.


	3. the sound of silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Hopefully this one lives up to the cheesy smoopiness of the day <3

Crowley’s not really big on speaking.

That’s not _entirely_ true, actually: Crowley loves to talk. He talks about documentaries he watched on telly and magazines articles printed on the kind of shiny, slick paper Aziraphale hates. He talks about silly things he saw people doing while stuck in traffic and the new hairstyles he’s been seeing on this or that red carpet, website, in the coffee shop queues. He argues and he debates; he makes ridiculous assertions just so Aziraphale will huff and correct him; he whispers temptations into the ears of security guards and secretaries, going about the business of mucking things up a bit—freelance, these days, just for the odd bit of fun.

So yes: Crowley talks, and jokes and discusses and announces and teases and postulates and questions, questions, questions, but he never really _says_ anything.

Aziraphale can understand that, though. Biting your tongue is a difficult habit to break, and Crowley’s been biting his for so long that sometimes Aziraphale wonders if he’s never bitten it straight through.

It’s fine. Aziraphale has long since learned to read between the lines, to hear what Crowley says in the twist of his lip and the cut of his eyes, in the twirl of his hands and the slouch of his shoulders. There are confessions to be heard in the hitch of Crowley’s breath after they kiss; there are declarations to be heard in the press of Crowley’s palm against Aziraphale’s palm, against his hips, his thighs. In his slow and careful touch, like he’s still giving Aziraphale time to pull away.

Aziraphale only pulls him closer. Kisses him again.

He knows how to speak in Crowley’s language of silence. How to say _stay_ with a hand on Crowley’s lower back and dinner reservations at Sketch. How to say _please_ with fingers in Crowley’s hair and glasses of wine. How to say _I love you_ in the trace of fingertips over a cheekbone and the drape of a blanket over a sleeping form.

He doesn’t need anything said out loud. He already knows.

So he’s not expecting it, when Crowley slips up behind him in bed one morning and noses into the back of his neck and says, so very quietly, “You know I love you, right?”

Aziraphale doesn’t _need_ it said, but he can’t help the way the breath all whooshes out of him at hearing it. His heart, lazy with sleep and the lack of necessity, kicks into double-time. “What’s brought this on?”

He feels Crowley shrug against his back, feels the cold tip of that beloved nose snuffling along his shoulders. “I was just thinking. I know things are different now, but I thought maybe I should say that it’s not—I’m not—this isn’t just, you know, some kind of lark. Being here with you.”

“Oh, _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale breathes. He wants to turn around, wants to gather Crowley up and kiss him down into the pillows, but when he starts to wriggle one of Crowley’s arms slips around his waist, keeping him in place.

 _All right,_ he thinks, settling, letting himself soften back into Crowley’s hold, melting like candlewax into the curl of Crowley’s body. _If it’s easier like this, hiding—all right._

“S’not a big deal, angel. Just wanted you to know.”

“I do know, my dear. I’ve always known.” Crowley huffs a laugh in his ear, disbelieving; Aziraphale grimaces at how much that must seem like a lie. “No, I’m being serious. Maybe it took me a while a realise what it _was_ , particularly, or _why_ it was. But I did know it.”

Crowley’s mouth slips into a grin against Aziraphale’s skin. “A while,” he repeats. “Six thousand years is a good bit longer than _a while_.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale says primly, elbowing Crowley in the ribs when he starts to laugh. Then he leans back further, putting more of his weight into Crowley’s arms; Crowley pulls him in, plasters himself up along Aziraphale’s back, bum, thighs, warm and gentle and lovely. “It was only five thousand, nine hundred and forty-one.”

There’s confusion, now, in Crowley’s voice. “Five thousand, nine hundred and—”

He falls silent.

Aziraphale knows this silence. It’s a calculating, questioning silence, one that means he’s reevaluating, readjusting. Looking back at a certain moment—walking down the aisle of a church, hopping from one foot to another, saving a case of books, being invited in to spend the night on the sofa—and understanding it again. Understanding it differently.

He takes Crowley’s hand from where it rests on his belly and waits. And waits. Dozes a little, relaxed against Crowley, and trusts that he’ll speak again when he’s ready.

Finally, when the position of the sun against the bedroom ceiling reads more like mid-morning than dawn, Crowley says, “Did we—Did we get married in 1941?”

Aziraphale, startled, laughs. “That would only have been possible if you’d known _I_ loved you too, you know. It’s not traditionally a one-sided thing.”

But Crowley doesn’t answer, burying his face into Aziraphale’s spine instead, and _this_ silence is a new silence. Not so much a calculating silence as a question that is waiting for a calculation to finish.

Aziraphale blinks, startled again, and cranes his neck to look over his shoulder. “Crowley? Did you know?”

One black-silk shoulder, the only bit of Crowley Aziraphale can see like this, shrugs, attempting—failing—carelessness. “Thought I did. Maybe I didn’t.”

“Even I—” _didn’t_ , Aziraphale starts to say, but that’s not really accurate, is it? He had known. He’d known for almost as long as he’d known Crowley had loved him. Unidentified and unexamined, maybe, but—in Paris, in Wessex, after Hamlet, after Christ. Over a plate of oysters in Rome. _Hadn’t_ he known?

Unsaid, but did Aziraphale need to say it? Didn’t they both know what their silences have always meant?

“I think perhaps you did,” he says now. “I think we’ve probably both always known. But that—that doesn’t mean we got married in 1941. We weren’t—like this.”

“I think we were,” Crowley returns, “but all right. We’re like this now, though, aren’t we?”

There’s another question in that question. Another confession in that recognition.

Another _will you_ in that _aren’t we?_

“Let me turn around,” Aziraphale says quietly, kissing Crowley’s wrist, his palm, the fourth finger of his left hand, “and I will.”

The curl of Crowley’s arm loosens; there’s a shuffle in the bed. Aziraphale turns and kisses Crowley’s eyelids, his cheekbones, his chin. His mouth, slow and sweet. Exchanging promises without words: a language all their own.

Aziraphale knows Crowley understands him. He understands Crowley too.

_Yes. I will._

_I do._


	4. the view

Crowley’s asleep on the sofa again.

Aziraphale can’t help but to put his book aside, to sit across from him and watch as the lamplight of night eases into the grey light of dawn. Crowley’s a little graceless in sleep; his arms and legs tend to get away from him, folding up in strange ways, trying to fit in his corporation. His forehead smooths out and his mouth tugs down a little at the corners, natural and unpretending, and he looks warm and soft and peaceful.

That’s how it feels, these days, to love him. Warm, and soft, and peaceful. That’s how it feels to be loved by him.

“You’re staring,” Crowley says, without moving. The edges of his mouth start to curl up.

“The view is nice,” Aziraphale says primly, which is mostly for show. He’s not really embarrassed to be caught looking, but they have their little routines. The comfort of it betrays him, though—they can both hear the repressed smile in Aziraphale’s voice.

He stretches over the sofa, long and lean: the routine progresses. “S’probably nicer from over here.”

Aziraphale doesn’t bother continuing to hide his smile as he goes to investigate this supposedly nicer view. He sits on the sofa by Crowley’s hip, makes a show of looking down at him. Crowley still hasn’t moved at all, except for the grin curving across his own mouth.

“Hm,” Aziraphale says, pretending at thoughtfulness. “Not bad, I suppose.” He reaches up to brush Crowley’s hair back from his forehead. His fingers trail down over Crowley’s cheek, over his jaw. Crowley is relaxed under his touch, entirely without tension, and it’s an addictive sensation: Crowley, warm, and soft, and peaceful.

“It’s probably better a little closer,” Crowley says quietly. His hand finds Aziraphale’s wrist, his thumb rubbing smoothly over Aziraphale’s pulse. Not pulling him in, but holding on, keeping him close.

Aziraphale leans in a little, hovering above Crowley. “This close?”

“A little closer.”

Their noses brush. Crowley sighs; his lips part in anticipation. “This close?” Aziraphale asks, hushed and teasing. He withdraws an inch just as Crowley’s chin raises, seeking. “ _This_ close?” Aziraphale repeats.

“ _Very nearly_ ,” Crowley huffs, playing at irritated, and Aziraphale takes the opportunity to close the distance.

Crowley makes a small, surprised, pleased little noise; Aziraphale kisses it out of his mouth, cupping his face. It’s a slow, familiar sort of kiss, the sort of kiss that feels like saying, _hello, good morning,_ the sort of kiss that feels like saying, _hello, I_ _’ve missed you even though you’ve been right here._

It’s the sort of kiss that feels like saying, _hello, I love you, all of you; I love you with all of me._

“What do you think?” Crowley asks, when Aziraphale finally draws back. His eyes have finally opened, shining like the early morning sun, and he’s smug and smirking and so obviously happy that it ricochets back into Aziraphale’s own chest and takes root there. Grows, green and flourishing. “About the view, I mean.”

Aziraphale leans in and kisses him again. “Best view in the world,” he says, stroking a thumb over Crowley’s cheek. Crowley doesn’t blush, not really, but he leans into Aziraphale’s hold, reaches a kiss to the outside of Aziraphale’s palm. “My most favourite view of all.”


	5. the dream

It’s not as if Aziraphale makes a habit of watching Crowley sleep.

It’s just that Crowley does sleep, and Aziraphale generally doesn’t. If Crowley just happens to go about sleeping in places where Aziraphale is busy being awake—the bookshop, at first, and increasingly occasionally, Crowley’s own sofa around the tail end of movie nights—then of course a few glances here or there are perfectly natural.

All right, _fine_ , Aziraphale makes a habit.

He’s different in sleep, and it’s addictive to look at: Crowley, soft and untroubled, unburdened. The smirk and snarl fade away, leaving his mouth, his cheeks, the line of his jaw, the length of neck, all of it rounded at their edges, blurred with vulnerability. His hands curl up close to his chest; his shoulders loosen and droop. He is eyelids and fingernails, ribs and waist, the trailing length of his legs, the skin of his feet.

Aziraphale keeps watch over him. Draws the curtains, lowers the lights. Lets Crowley get on with the sleeping and doesn’t ask if Crowley ever sleeps when he’s alone. If he’s letting himself drift away more and more inside the orbit of Aziraphale because that’s where he feels safe.

Aziraphale looks and looks and can’t bring himself to look away.

*

He’s looking one night, late.

He doesn’t even really mean to be looking. Isn’t pay that close of attention to himself, to his gaze. Crowley’d fallen asleep on his sofa after a Bond night, and Aziraphale can hardly blame him; _Diamonds are Forever_ may have had Sean Connery to recommend it, but little else. Aziraphale himself had picked up the book he’d brought with him, just for company while he finished the plate of nibbles he’d brought.

The nibbles were eventually finished off and the book had proven not quite that interesting. Aziraphale’s drifting as he looks, a thumb tucked absently between the pages, considering whether he ought to head out or stick around to take Crowley to breakfast the next morning. Eggs benedict at the Wolseley, that’s always Crowley’s favourite, isn’t it, and a pain au chocolat, and they could go round to walk it off at the park afterward, and—

Crowley whines.

Aziraphale blinks, and looks again.

He’s curled up on his sofa, the way he usually ends up, and Aziraphale had drawn a blanket over him an hour or two ago. Now Crowley seems to be trying to disappear underneath it, his limbs twitching a little, his brow furrowed, his fingers clenching around nothing where they’re drawn up to his chest. His mouth moves without making another sound, but he looks confused and alarmed and hurt and Aziraphale is on his feet before he even thinks about it, taking the three steps to the sofa and brushing the hair back from Crowley’s face gently.

“Shh, shh,” he says, sitting at the sofa at Crowley’s hip, leaning over him protectively. “It’s all right, we’re safe. You’re all right, dear boy. You’re dreaming about whatever it is you’d like best.”

He doesn’t mean to make it a miracle. There’s a bit of an unspoken rule about that: they don’t miracle reality for each other, they don’t affect each other like that. But in the next moment, Crowley’s brow is smoothing out, his fingers are relaxing, and he wakes up a moment or two later, soft and a little disoriented, saying, “Angel, angel,” already reaching. “Angel, I thought I was—”

But then he opens his eyes, and doesn’t finish his sentence. “Are you all right?” Aziraphale asks, worried he’d overstepped, but Crowley only blinks and shakes his head. Lets go of where his hands have caught Aziraphale’s.

“Yeah, I just—guess I was having a dream.” And that is that.

*

It doesn’t happen often. Once after a late night at one of those modern magic shows Crowley had indulged Aziraphale in; once mid-afternoon, when Aziraphale had popped out to satisfy a craving for gourmet popcorn. Again after a Bond night, and again after they’d moved on from Bond to heist movies.

Crowley never mentions it, and he sleeps easier, wakes up softer, looks at Aziraphale the next morning with his beautiful eyes and the kind of rare, true smile he barely ever smiles.

Time passes. They grow easier in their comfort; they grow more certain in their safety. A few plants move into the windows of the bookshop; a few shelves of books appear in Crowley’s flat. Crowley sleeps, and Aziraphale doesn’t, and the world continues to turn.

No harm done.

*

Dinner had been lovely, and long; they’d been too late to sneak into the ballet in the end, but it hadn’t mattered. Crowley had been loose and laughing, draped in his chair, lit with flickering candlelight and a rather pleased smile, and Aziraphale hadn’t been eager to get a move on. Anyway, they’d seen the performance before.

They’d skipped the theatre entirely and instead walked back to Soho, leisurely and slow, stopping to bestow blessings and temptations on various tourists, elbowing each other in the sides and one-upping each other. A temptation to quit a job and a blessing to find a better one; a temptation to steal from the till and a blessing that they’ll find forty pounds in their pocket, tempting them to put their ill-gotten prize back.

“Playing dirty,” Crowley laughs, but when the shop girl slips the money back where it belongs, he doesn’t tempt her again.

“Learned from the best,” Aziraphale shoots back, and ignores it when Crowley sticks out his tongue at him.

That night they play records on the old gramophone, and drink themselves warm and flushed and laughing on red wine, and when Crowley lays back and closes his eyes, Aziraphale isn’t really surprised.

He is surprised, barely an hour later, when Crowley falls into the nightmare.

It happens fast, faster than it ever had before—Crowley peaceful one moment and gasping the next, writhing as if in pain, his hands flailing and a shout caught and garbled in his throat. Aziraphale doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate: he grabs Crowley’s hands and says too loud in his hurry, “You’re dreaming, you’re dreaming about whatever you’d like best.”

Crowley gasps again, his hands tightening around Aziraphale’s, but then the miracle takes hold: he softens all at once, breathes out hard and heavy. Relaxes back into the cushions and opens his eyes.

“Angel,” he says, finding Aziraphale looking down at him. “Angel, I thought I was—”

But he doesn’t let go of Aziraphale’s hands this time. He looks at him like he can hardly believe he’s really there.

“What did you think?” Aziraphale asks gently.

Crowley stares at him. Stares at their hands, still tangled up together. Looks up at Aziraphale again, his eyebrows knit together. “I thought I was—here.”

Aziraphale’s chest goes warm and full. _Whatever you’d like best._ “You are here,” he reassures. “You’re here. The bookshop. We’re safe.”

“I thought I was with you,” Crowley says, pressingly, as if Aziraphale isn’t quite getting it.

The warm, full thing in Aziraphale’s chest bubbles like champagne. “You _are_ here with me.”

Crowley shakes his head, his mess of red hair going haywire against the cushions. “I dreamt I was with you, here, and you were—you were—” His brow furrows again. He looks at their hands, pressed together. He looks up to meet Aziraphale’s gaze, and then his eyes drop, ever so slightly, to Aziraphale’s mouth.

 _Oh,_ Aziraphale realises, all of a sudden. The miracle isn’t whatever Crowley _does_ like best. It’s whatever he _would_ like best. Something he doesn’t have now, and wishes he did. Something Crowley wants.

“I dreamt I was here with you,” Crowley says again, a little more confused, a little more uncertain, “and you were—”

“I am here with you,” Aziraphale repeats, holding Crowley’s hands a little tighter. “And I—I would.”

Crowley blinks, once, deliberate. “You would?”

Oh, yes, Aziraphale would. He doesn’t need to be dreaming to think about that. He’s thought about it a hundred times, a thousand times; he’d have done it a thousand times already if he’d been given half the chance. And here it was: a whole, shining chance.

Their hands are still pressed palm to palm, Aziraphale’s hip pressed to Crowley’s where he’d come to sit beside him. Crowley’s warm, and his eyes are wondering and his breath is holding, waiting, and it’s easy, so easy to lean in, so easy to be so gentle it might not even be happening at first, so careful Crowley could have still moved away and still been entirely safe. Protected, but not pressured. Never pressured.

This is how Aziraphale kisses him: easy, gently, carefully. Asking, after all this time, _is this—?_

Crowley does not move away. Instead he leans in. Tightens his hands around Aziraphale’s and leans in. Breathes against Aziraphale’s cheek and leans in. Parts his lips, and leans in.

This is how Crowley kisses back: easy, gently, carefully. Saying, after all this time, _yes._

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, until they can’t be kissing anymore, until they’re smiling too hard to be kissing anymore. Crowley’s a mess of sleep-blurred lines and clumsy hands and tangled hair, pushing himself up off the cushions to sit up and lean in and lean in and lean in, and he kisses Aziraphale until they’re both wide awake.

“You know,” he finally says, leaning his forehead against Aziraphale’s and giggling, “that was better than I dreamt it.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, terribly innocently before he dissolves into giggles too. “Did you dream about it? Fancy that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @forineffablereasons!


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